Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver!
by ParadiseAvenger
Summary: Spoilers for the anime. Novelization of the doujinshi. After the battle with the Kishin Asura, Soul is no longer able to transform into a weapon. How will he and Maka deal with their first assignment when he's as worthless as he is? MakaXSoul.
1. Let Me Kiss You, Please?

I updated and edited this ENTIRE story because it was still a little rough in places.

Based on the doujinshi Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver.

**Be warned**, the doujinshi is on a **HENTAI **site even though there's _no sex_ in that one. It's in two parts on this website: http:/ www. fakku. net/manga. php?series=Soul+Eater so you can either go there and look for Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver 01 and then 02 or…

Part One: http:/ www. fakku. net/viewmanga. php?id=4588

Part Two: http:/ www. fakku. net/viewmanga. php?id=4595

ENJOY! (I posted this note at the end too, so you can feel free to read it then.)

**SPOILER NOTE:** Because I know a lot of people are just starting out watching or reading Soul Eater, I want to warn you that there are some spoilers throughout this little story and the doujinshi. So, those of you that really care might want to sit this one out. Those of you that don't, well READ ON!

X X X

Together, Death the Kid, Patricia and Elizabeth Thompson, BlackStar, Tsubaki Nakatsukasa, Maka Albarn, and Soul Eater had managed to defeat the Kishin Asura. But hell, if anyone was honest, they had only beaten him because of Maka Albarn. Maka, Soul Eater's skinny feminine little partner, had turned her body into a weapon and fought Asura back. Even then, her weapon-blood hadn't defeated him. Her bravery and spirit had beaten him. It had been six weeks since that battle and the mess had been cleaned up by now. Everyone had healed nicely and was no worse for the wear save a few proudly-worn battle-scars.

Except Soul… he was completely unharmed, nothing but smooth flawless skin on his face and chest and back—everywhere. He hadn't been a part of the battle, locked either in his mind or in Maka's embrace the entire time. Because he was cool, he was completely honest with himself. He was a failure—a hopeless useless failure. Hell, Chrona had been of more help than him!

But that was six weeks ago…

Everyone was healed up nicely, even BlackStar though he had chased about the entire time he was supposed to be resting much to Tsubaki's horror. Even Maka, who had taken the brunt of the battle on her small fragile body, had finally taken off the last of her bandages. Everyone was healed, that is, except Soul… and he had been barely involved.

Something inside him was broken, cracked apart, stuck, trapped, damaged…

He couldn't transform into a weapon anymore.

…

It was Friday, blessed lovely Friday. Soul and Maka were resting in their apartment, tired from a long week of school and all the work they had to make up. Maka was stretched out on the couch, long creamy legs spread before her, with a thick book resting in her lap. Soul, being a little—nah, a lot—less studious, was reading glossy magazines at her feet. He was kneeling on the floor beside the couch, desperate to be close to her because he was so useless and didn't want her to cast him aside like something broken, even though that was all he was now.

"Hey, Maka?" he ventured in the comfortable silence that stretched between them.

"Hmm?" She didn't look up from her book, but he did. She was lovely before him, hair damp from a shower, ash-blonde tresses like silk around her face and falling down over her shoulders. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, but she had a right to be tired. She had been working so hard lately, trying to pick up the slack his inability to change into a scythe had created.

He leaned his head on the pillow her foot was resting on and gazed up into her face as he spoke, gauging her reaction. "You said this earlier, but what kind of feeling is love?" he asked her carefully. It seemed like a stupid question now that he had said it out loud.

For a moment, she was quiet, staring blankly at his face. "W-what? Don't talk about that stuff all of the sudden," she said finally.

Soul lifted his head from the pillow to peer at her. "But," he began. "There are so many different types of love. Don't get me wrong, I know it's sudden, but… you know, I…" His bit his lip, hesitating, and shook his head slightly. "It's different for me because I don't have the right family."

She hit him in the face with a pillow and slid her eyes back to her book. "Shut up, Soul," she said irritably.

He stared at her, unsure of what expression his face was making but feeling both put-out and hurt. She just brushed him off lately, telling him to be quiet. Was she angry because he was such a failure? He wasn't angry, though. He knew he deserved it.

"You know, Soul, you're the type that loves _inconveniently_," she said softly after a long moment, lifted her eyes from her book, and reclined on her hand.

Once before, he had asked her what love was like and Maka had been quiet for a long while before finally telling him: _"Love is like the sun, Soul_. _It's warm and heats you up from the inside out and you can't live without it." _Then, she had kissed his cheek and gone to bed. He wanted her to kiss him again, to make him feel like he wasn't a useless weapon, but she didn't.

She only said, "I'm your meister and I had a good if not dysfunctional home life before this, but even I can't explain it. I don't really even understand it myself." Then, she put her nose back in her book and ignored him studiously.

Soul studied her face as she read, watching her pretty green eyes dart across the words on the page. Her ash-blonde tresses were feathering against her cheeks like phantom fingers, caressing her. She was wearing one of her old white blouses, tattered and threadbare in the shoulders, and a pair of black short shorts that exposed every inch of her long creamy legs. She looked so beautiful, so strong, and so perfect even with the hairline scar beneath her eye from the fight with Kishin Asura.

"Hey," Soul whispered. He wanted her to kiss him, but he wasn't above taking the roundabout and uncool way. "Let me kiss you."

Flat-out and without even looking at him, she snapped, "No."

"Come on," he pleaded.

"No."

"Let me kiss you."

"No!"

Maka threw the pillow in Soul's face again, but it proved to be a slight downfall because he just kept pressing forward on her. She put her foot on his head, kicking at him, but the pillow only cushioned the blows. Beneath her bare ankle, his face was soft and strange. He looked like a troubled child, crimson eyes lit with some far-off light. He gripped the pillow and his fingers looked milk-pale translucent and fragile. She wanted to chop him like she usually would, but suddenly her heart was racing and she didn't want to hurt him, not when he was already feeling so down and useless.

"Why?" he asked her. "Let's kiss—"

"NO!"

Soul was crouched at the foot of the couch and he crept slowly up over her body like an animal on the hunt or a hunter shrinking from his prey. She couldn't decide which. Soul had looked so strange and hurt lately. Finally, he was straddling her middle, knees on either side of her narrow body, and he had pinned her wrists beside her head. The heat of his body was seeping into her and the scent of his skin surrounded her, flooding her mind. His eyes were like sad dark rubies, more blood-colored than usual. His eyes looked… injured…

"Get off me, stupid!" Maka snapped. She couldn't hurt him, not now.

"It's fine to do it sometimes," Soul whispered.

"What's wrong with you?" Maka demanded, staring up into her partner's sad strange face and into his strange wounded eyes. "Get off me already!"

"Come on. Why not?" Soul asked. He was holding her wrist gingerly in his warm soft hand. Maka's hands were the rough ones, from handling him all the time when he was heavy and dangerous and actually a weapon, but his were soft and tender.

Maka put her free hand over her eyes, hiding her face form him, and was quiet for a long moment. "Because… it'll feel good…"

"If it feels good, then it is good," he said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. The scant weight of his body was resting on her thighs and he was hot and soft against her.

"It's not good!" Maka protested. "Because everything we know will stop being good."

Soul's face was unspeakably sad, staring down at her with those blood-colored eyes of his. For eternity, he was quiet and she felt his fingers quaking around her wrist like the feathers of a small broken bird. This wasn't the Soul she was so used to.

"I feel like I'll forget a lot of things," she murmured because she felt a desperate need to break the silence stretching between them where there had never been silence before.

"Maka," Soul whispered and she looked up to meet his crimson eyes. "You're good at what you do." He held her rough strong hand in his own, stroking her knuckles gently with the pad of his thumb. His fingers almost seemed smaller than hers, overpowered by the strength of hers.

"Don't be stupid," she snapped and tried to pull her hand away.

Soul only tightened his grip. "I'm not being stupid," he protested. His eyes lit with that strange almost desperate expression again as he stared down into her eyes. If only she knew how beautiful she looked beneath him, pale tresses spread like silk on the couch. "You use me well, Maka," he murmured and she felt his breath kiss her face.

She put her fingers over her face. "Seriously, Soul, what's with you lately?"

He leaned down towards her, eyes feathering closed. He was going to kiss her and she had already told him 'no' repeatedly. With a yell, she grabbed her book from where hit had fallen to the floor and decked him smoothly. Then, she wrestled her way out from underneath his writhing body and stalked to the threshold of the hall that led to their rooms.

"Be good and get better already," she said cruelly and then vanished into the dimness.

Soul was alone.

Maka hadn't even hit him that hard, he realized as he rubbed his head. She was being so gentle with him, as if he was about to break, but then again he was already broken. Why was she even keeping him around anymore, a useless weapon?

Soul thought about the fight with the Kishin Asura, about the blow he had taken for her and then collapsed uselessly in agony. He had only been half-conscious, listening as Maka's body became the ultimate weapon, even stronger than he was with the blades coming out of every part of her body rather than just her arm like he did. Maybe she was even stronger than her Death Scythe father like that. It was then that he'd lost his understanding of why he was even alive. She didn't need him. She was a weapon in her own right. And since then, he hadn't been able to turn into a weapon himself, not even his arm. But Maka had been training day and night to learn to control her weapon-blood and use it all the time, not just when she was unconscious.

He really was useless to her. She didn't need him for anything anymore, if she had ever needed him to begin with.

…

Maka tossed and turned in her empty bed. Since the fight, Soul had been sleeping with her, but only to wake her up when she had nightmares or vice versa. She had been having nightmares of the kishin's fingers tearing into her body, of her precious friends' fallen brutalized bodies, of Soul taking those blows for her and falling… Maka hadn't had a nightmare in a while, but Soul's small cries woke her almost every night now. He was in worse condition than she was, than anyone was.

She buried her face in her pillow and sighed heavily, inhaling the mixed scent of her skin and Soul's body.

She was getting to the point where she thought she might break in half—the weapon-half and the human-half, weapon and meister in one body but so much different from Chrona and Ragnarok. She got her meister-blood from her powerful mother and her weapon-blood from her strong but stupid father. At least she had her mother's brains… She just felt so alone. There was no one else in the world like her and she was alone.

Soul's soft footsteps padded into the room, lifted the covers beside her, and slid in. Suddenly angry, she sat up and shouted at him to go to his own room, but he was silent, ignoring her so studiously that she wondered if he might have fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. He didn't sleep well at night anymore and neither did she. They were both exhausted.

Finally, Soul whispered in the darkness of Maka's bedroom, "I'm… really useless to you, huh?"

Maka's anger revived even though it didn't belong—so he _had_ been awake! But she was still a compassionate individual and pushed her anger down when she heard the pain in his voice. "Don't say that about yourself," she said though angrily. She flopped down on her own pillows beside him, crossing her arms over her chest tightly. She wanted to cuddle up against him, soak up the heat of his body, but she didn't allow herself that. It was wrong, it was a tease to him, and she shouldn't hurt him.

"I don't understand why you're carrying around a busted weapon," Soul whispered and Maka looked at his thin fingers wrapped around the thick blankets. His back was a fortress of bone, impenetrable unless she wanted to break her way into him with the weapon inside her body. "I'm useless to you. What good is a weapon that can't transform?"

Maka sighed irritably and rubbed her face with her rough hands. "As usual, there you go blurting out crazy things."

"My meister?"

She cracked open her eyes. "Yeah?"

"My piano teacher was like you too…" Soul whispered though she wasn't sure what he meant by that. Though they often talked about his piano and sometimes his family, she didn't know anything about his piano teacher.

Maka allowed her tired eyes to slide closed again as Soul recounted the story of how they had met, speaking softly as if through a dream. His voice seeped into her dreams and her mind was full of the beautiful images of him at that glossy black and ivory piano in that handsome pinstriped suit. His hands had been so pale then, but still soft and lovely, dancing over the keys and playing that twisted yet beautiful melody just for her—it was her song. Maka felt in that moment that Soul was hers and hers alone. But, she wondered, thinking of how Soul had wanted to kiss her earlier and she had denied him, if she had ever considered herself Soul's…

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?


	2. Do You Really Not Need Me?

I updated and edited this ENTIRE story because it was still a little rough in places.

X X X

The sun was a bright honey-gold outside the window and birds twittered distantly. Maka woke with the dream-memory of Soul's twisted beautiful piano music still playing in her head. She sat up, yawning and stretching, and her movement woke Soul. She could hear his ragged breathing, gasping for breath as he came violently out of a nightmare, but didn't ask what he had dreamed about. Instead, she crawled over his body to get out of bed and told him to get up. They had their first mission since the big battle today and the last thing she wanted was to fail.

Maka had dressed and showered and was standing at the stove when Soul came out of her room still in his pajamas with his silver hair mussed from sleep. "Good morning!" she said cheerfully. "Do you want your eggs on bread or on a plate?"

"Hmm, on a plate," he said softly.

That surprised her and she tried to disguise that she had taken out bread for him. Soul was such a big one for the messy breakfast sandwiches. He _really_ hadn't been himself lately.

Maka passed him his breakfast and decided to make her own breakfast into a messy sandwich to hide the bread she had taken out for him. As she finished cooking her eggs, she saw fit to terrorize Soul with some questions she knew he wouldn't like. "Hey, Soul, why do you play piano?" she asked. "Did you like the music and teach yourself?"

She felt him prickle in his seat as if she held his soul in her hands and was squeezing her fingers into his tenderness. "No…" he said finally. "I was kind of forced into it. I told you I had a teacher…"

"Forced?" Maka asked as she sat down across from his with her breakfast. She wanted to ask him about the teacher and how she and his teacher were similar, but couldn't get the words out. "Is that why you're always so sulky about it?"

Soul stared into her face, pale and nervous. He didn't want to go into his messed up family—his family was so bad that he had to ask her what it felt like to love and be loved. He was about to open his mouth anyway and pour it out to her, but suddenly, Maka reached across the table with a jar in her bare callused hands.

"Here, jam!" she said cheerily.

"Y-you're always moving on," he forced out and hated the way his voice sounded so small. He cleared his throat. "It would have been better if I told you, right?"

Maka took a bite before answering him. "No, not really."

Soul stared at her, crimson eyes wide. Had her question really had nothing to do with the situation at hand?

Then, just like that, she had completely changed the subject. "This is only a temporary thing, right? So it's fine. You'll get better, Soul," Maka said as she ate.

"But—"

She jabbed her fork at his face and he paused to wonder why she had a fork if she had made a sandwich. Had she not been planning on making a sandwich?

"Get better, Soul," she snapped. Her face was fierce. "I don't know who will tell you this but me, so, this is your problem. Do something to fix it!" Suddenly, she smiled broadly. "Alright! This conversation is over now, okay?" Then, she stabbed her fork through one of the sausages on his plate and he winced at the thought of her dangerous fork in his face.

"O-okay," he said.

…

The day was buttery and cool. Winter was on its way and Maka and Soul were going to an even colder city in the north, though they still dressed lightly for fighting and would probably come to regret that. It was slightly warm in Death City and the leaves were just turning russet and gold. The train station was packed with people, bustling busily about their daily lives. Most probably had no idea about the battle with the Kishin Asura and that his great vanquisher was inches before them—Maka Albarn.

Soul called out to Maka over the roar of the train and the crowd to hurry up. They found an empty car and sat down comfortably together, shoulder to shoulder.

Maka reclined against the cushioned seat and began talking half-to-herself and half-to-Soul. "I'm kind of defenseless right now," she began quietly. "Or maybe just being reckless. I wonder if I'll die… I really don't want to die."

Soul glanced at her. His face was soft and sad and he looked oddly like a small abandoned child, hurt beyond belief by someone he trusted. "Why do you talk about dying so much lately? You could've left me behind you know… We both know you don't need me anymore…"

She flicked her green eyes over his face and they were dark with sorrow and something else. "We're together, Soul," Maka said softly and inspected her bare scarred hands. There was a thick slash of scarring across her palm from once when Soul had been too hot for her to hold and he had burned her. He was always hurting her anymore. "Going on alone or leaving you alone… I won't do that." She bit her fingernail lightly. "But it feels like it's going that way anyway."

Soul stared hard at her, feeling something hard and sore deep in his chest. "That's… really depressing, don't you think?"

"You're such a pain," Maka said. "A huge one."

Soul shrank down in his seat, stretching out his long twig-thin legs. He looked painfully small and thin. "That's true," he admitted and watched as Maka inspected the scars on her knuckles beside him. They didn't talk anymore during the train ride.

…

The city was in the middle of nowhere and achingly decrepit, eerie and unnerving. Maka was happy she wasn't alone, even if Soul was useless and couldn't turn into a weapon. He was still with her at least, a comforting presence at her side. She trembled with cold as they walked, searching for the inn Lord Death had arranged for them to stay at. If Soul was cold, he didn't show it. He only continued walking beside her with his hands in his pockets as he scanned the buildings for signs of Kishin or the inn. The city was dark and unnerving and they both felt as if countless pairs of eyes were staring down on them. Finally, they found the inn and, even though it was falling apart at the seams, it was still a relief to get out from underneath the glare of those hidden eyes.

"This place is falling apart," Maka whispered. She was clutching the railing and fearfully staring down at the gaps between the roughhewn boards. For such a brave girl who had fearlessly plunged in to fight the Kishin Asura, she looked damn terrified of the wobbling staircase.

"You only have to last one night," Soul told her as they climbed the dangerously creaking stairs. "We're going home tomorrow morning. Lord Death said this would be easy."

"Yeah, I know," she said and sighed in relief when she reached the top of the staircase.

"So, what is it this time?" Soul asked as he unlocked the door for them.

"There's a mad person in this city who's been doing some damage. There's not much about it, but the damage isn't that great. Lord Death thinks it's a weak demon," Maka said and began unwinding her thin scarf from around her neck. "I feel a small presence east of here. I think it's weak too. This _should_ be easy."

"Your wavelength is really convenient," Soul murmured as he closed the door and locked it.

"Thanks," Maka said, but her face was sad. Soul's complements used to make her eyes shine and her face bloom with happy color, but now she only looked sad. She lifted her scarf from her neck and draped it over the back of the single chair and peeled off her jacket.

Silence stretched between them like a rubber band.

She toed off her heavy boots. "I'm going to sleep until night. There's nothing else for us to do anyway," Maka said finally and pulled back the covers of the bed. She tried not to think about the countless bodies that had slept here or had sex here or even died here in this filthy bed.

"What? Already?" Soul asked. "All you've been doing lately is sleeping."

Maka's body tensed beneath the covers and Soul immediately knew that he had done something wrong and that he was going to pay for it. "Thanks to a certain someone, I've been carrying all the weight of this team so I'm tired," she snarled. Her voice was cold and cruel and he knew she meant to hurt him, but he deserved it. She yanked the blankets up around her shoulders, burying herself deeply in the grungy bedding. "Good night, Soul."

Soul was sitting at the foot of the gross bed and he shuddered as her mean words wracked through him. Even so, he knew he deserved all that and more from her. He was so useless—a weapon partner that couldn't transform into a weapon for his wonderful powerful meister. Silently, he lay down beside her on the covers and spent a long moment staring at the stained cracked ceiling. Maka tried to ignore him, but once she felt his body go limp and warm with sleep beside her, she just couldn't anymore.

Maka cracked her emerald eyes open and stared at her partner's handsome sleeping face. Soul looked so lost to her, so small and fragile. His skin was the same white as his shirt beneath his heavy red and yellow jacket and the jacket just dwarfed his narrow shoulders and thin frail wrists. He definitely looked like a pianist, not a weapon. She wrapped her arms around his body and shuffled him carefully beneath the covers, careful not to wake him.

Then, she curled up flush against him even though the bed was queen-sized and there was plenty of opportunity to have space between them. He was already asleep, if she was still pressed against him when they woke, she could say she had done it in her sleep. She would never be able to admit that she wanted to sleep inside his skin, as close to him as she possibly could, and it would mean too much to him if he woke to her arms around him.

So, she could perfectly disguise this closeness between them. It was cold, after all, and he was warm.

…

Moonlight was streaming in through the barred window, making it look as if the insane moon was locked in a cell for something terrible. The vase of fake poppies on the nightstand looked washed out and wilted in the yellowish light. Outside, the ugly city was quiet save the sounds of it falling apart at the seams. At first, Maka didn't know what had woken her because the world was so peaceful and calm. Then, she eased open her eyes and tasted her partners name on her lips.

"Soul…" she breathed.

He was looming above her, holding her wrists down against the mattress on either side of her head. His silvery hair hung down around his face, framing it like silk ribbons of moonlight and casting beautiful shadows across his pale features. His crimson eyes glowed in the dark. He looked startlingly handsome, like he did when he wore his pinstriped suit and sat at his piano, but also that weird cross between predator and prey, hunter and hunted.

"Stop it, Soul," she murmured. She wasn't afraid of him, not even like this when he had so completely overpowered her, because she knew he wouldn't hurt or betray her. "I told you yesterday."

Suddenly, his grip on her wrists became painful and she yelped. She lifted her legs, trying to get out from underneath him, and her knee traced a path up the inside of his thigh. She could knee him in the crotch and he would get off of her, in pain, she knew that yet she couldn't bring herself to hurt him like that. She couldn't hurt him at all. He lowered his face until their noses brushed together and she could feel his warm moist breath on her lips. The heat coming off of his body was amazing and Maka felt as if her skin was going to crisp and burn at the pure radiating warmth of Soul.

"I told you, no…" she murmured.

But even as she spoke she felt Soul's lips just barely touch her own. Her eyes slid closed and her lips parted gently purely of their own accord. He teased her, just tantalizing her aching lips with the thought of tasting him. He released her wrist and threaded his fingers through hers, relishing the way she tightened her hard hands over his soft ones. Small little protests escaped Maka's half-open mouth and Soul's lips ghosted against the corner of her mouth in what was almost a kiss, but he still hadn't taken her mouth against his own.

Through the teasing, his voice suddenly rang cold through the room, "Really?"

Maka opened her jade-green eyes quickly and their faces were so close. His forehead was resting against hers and his silvery tresses were tickling her cheeks like a soft butterfly caress. There was something strange in his deep crimson orbs and Maka felt the first touch of fear in her heart. She reminded herself that this was _Soul_.

"If you want to stop me, then stop me," Soul said coldly. "If you wanted to, it'd be so easy for you." His body pressed against hers, hot and strong even though he looked so weak and thin and half-broken, and he dipped his face down close to hers. "Come on. I'm waiting!" His face was fierce and also terribly sad, as if this was the only thing in the world he wanted but it was being denied to him.

Maka was hurting Soul.

Tears brimmed over in her eyes and she didn't have the heart to tell him to stop. She wasn't even sure she wanted him to. Did she want Soul to kiss her like this? Or did she only stop him because she knew she would like it and then they would never be the same again?

"The person you want isn't me, is it?" Soul asked suddenly and sat up. He hooked his fingers in the tie at her throat, pulling it loose so that it came away like a ribbon. He held it in his fingers like a snake, like a childhood ribbon, like Maka's father sometimes did with her old ribbons. "The person you want is 'Papa' isn't it, Maka?"

Maka's heart froze in her chest, beats stuttering and her soul wavelength panicked. Her father? She didn't want her father, did she? No…

"I'm right, aren't I?" Soul continued and began unbuttoning the buttons of her blouse with one hand, still holding her thin wrist with the other. Even though she had one hand free, Maka didn't push him away. She couldn't. Soul splayed his fragile fingers on the thin white flesh of her stomach, small breasts still disguised by the edges of her blouse. She wasn't quite naked before him, but she felt that way—completely exposed to her very heart and soul.

He pushed his hand into her and she thought she saw their flesh melting together, merging as weapon and meister, until it looked as if his hand was reaching right into her empty stomach, right into her chest cavity to reach for her heart. "Say something," he demanded and there was a hitch in his voice. A single teardrop splashed down on his hand, rolled over his knuckles, and ran down her stomach where his fingers pushed into her flesh. "Maka, please, say something."

Above her, something weird was happening to Soul's body and she felt a sharp cold point pressing into her gut. A few drops of blood splattered down on her bare stomach and white school blouse, staining her purity. Soul released her wrists and she immediately brought both hands to her tear-stained face, sobbing behind her hands as if that could hide the fact that she was crying from Soul.

"Look here, Maka, come on," Soul whispered and there was something crazed in his voice not unlike Chrona's poor beaten tone. "Tell me… which scythe… is this?" Maka's eyes snapped open and she looked up into Soul's face. He looked completely heartbroken, but also crazy and Maka saw the dark blade of her father's Death Scythe looming above her in the darkness. The base of the handle was pressing into her stomach, gouging deep and drawing blood as Soul's hand had not. Blood was also running down the handle, oozing between and over Soul's thin white fingers. The cold steel of her father pressed deeper into her body, hard and cold, and Maka knew immediately that Soul was going to hurt her. She opened her mouth to cry out—

Soul lurched up in the bed he was sharing with Maka in the grungy inn of a rundown city in the middle of nowhere. He was panting desperately and it took him a long shattering moment to realize it must have only been a dream… a horrible nightmare!

"No!" Maka screamed.

Soul's heart leaped into his throat and he whirled to face her in the bed. She was on her side, facing him, small hard hands rolled into fists, and her pretty face was twisted with terror. Tears streamed beneath her lids, running down her cheeks, and her teeth were digging into her lower lip harshly. She was grunting and moaning and whimpering, crying out in small screams occasionally.

Soul threw off the covers and grabbed her shoulder, somehow shaking her gently when his heart was racing so hard in the cage of his ribs. "Maka! Wake up!" She couldn't really be having the same nightmare as him, right? They were close, but they weren't that close, not even when they resonated. "Maka!"

Her green eyes shot open and her expression was completely lost to him. It was almost as if she was in another world, a world far away from him or terrifyingly close. In terror, a scream tore from her throat. She shoved Soul's hand away and shrieked, "No!" as she threw herself away from him.

Soul snatched his hand back against his chest and some hurt must have shown in his face because she wrapped her arms around herself and whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm still sleepy."

Her entire body was trembling like a leaf caught in a storm. She crawled away from him and sat on the edge of the bed, hugging herself and trembling. Soul wanted so badly to comfort her, but what right did he have to even touch her? He wasn't her weapon anymore. He was just some useless boy she chose to keep by her side for some unknown reason.

"What time is it?" she asked finally and stood up from the bed. "It looks like a good time to go."

"Hey," Soul ventured. "Do you really not need me?"

"What?" She whirled to face him on the bed, pigtails kissing her cheeks.

The moonlight streaming down on his pale face made him look haunted and sad. With his silvery hair and red eyes, he looked like some kind of creature brought back from the dead to live a dark and twisted half-life. "You can do it yourself, can't you?" he whispered. "It's enough. As for me, well, I'm no replacement and I'm not able to turn into anything. I'm useless to you."

Maka was quiet for a long moment. She stood from the bed and leaned against the barred window, hiding her face from Soul with the darkness. "Alright, then," she said finally and he looked as if she had struck him. "Can you at least act like a man and try to hold me back?"

The expression in Soul's crimson eyes was hidden by his silver hair. "I don't want to do that to you," he confessed.

Maka felt her throat close up. "What's wrong with you? 'I don't want to…'?" She suddenly felt small and breakable when Soul used to make her feel so strong. A bubble of meanness welled up in her chest like a poison that she just had to let out. "You just mean that you _can't_ right, Soul?"

His face broke again, a small stricken fear gracing his red eyes and his fragile fingers tightened on the twisted blankets. He looked as if she had grabbed something vital inside of him and twisted it cruelly, tearing him apart.

She grabbed her jacket and pulled it on as she continued. "I said it before. I don't need you when you're not a weapon, but… to let you go is to deny our relationship. So, do you understand?" She pulled on her gloves over her scarred ugly hands, hiding them. "Soul, I'm," she hesitated and stood before him in her everyday battle garb. "I'm your partner and I need you, Soul, no matter what. I'm telling the truth. This is no lie, but you know…" She put her hands on the mattress in front of him and leaned down to be right in his face. She tightened her fingers in the collar of his jacket and jerked him forward harshly. "You're the one who decides who you are, Soul! Not me and not your family, not your brother and not even Lord Death! Just you!" She gasped for breath, angry but so desperate for him to understand what she was trying to say. "I'm your partner and I'm never going to let you go!"

He stared up at her with his lips slightly parted and his eyes wide with shock. He looked completely stricken, face frozen in a mask of broken yet put-back-together features that had become his expression as of late. A single bead of sweat rolled down his jaw and seeped into the neck of his shirt and Maka saw the dark vein in his throat, pulse hammering wildly. For a long time, he just stared at her like that.

She wondered if he thought this was too good to be true. After all, what meister wanted a weapon that couldn't change into a weapon yet here she was spouting that she was going to stay with him no matter what? Yet, it was the truth.

Maka wrung her scarred hands and said, "Come on, Soul. Let's go."

But he didn't move and Maka walked to the door alone. Even if she was alone, she had to complete this mission and keep this place safe, even if it meant doing it without Soul at her side, even without her precious weapon partner who couldn't turn into a weapon.

She put her hand on the cold knob and hesitated again. "Soul," she whispered and half-turned, but the bed behind her was empty and Soul's headband was gone from the nightstand. Where had he gone? Then, she felt his warm soft hand on her back, guiding her forward, just being with her, and it was enough for her.

X X X

You know what's really annoying? People who add stories to "Favorites Lists" or "Story Alerts," but **DO NOT review**! Yes, I'm talking to you BloodInTheNile, QuilavaKing, and SakuraKamichama! _(If anyone else does it after I post this chapter, this goes out to you too!)_ _**If you hit the button, you should review!**_

Questions, comments, concerns?

**Review** or I'll have to break out the umbrella and become very warlike again. You don't want that!


	3. Why Don't You Just Let Go?

I really just want to post this whole thing so I don't have to fuss with it! It's in my way! Grrr!

I updated and edited this ENTIRE story because it was still a little rough in places.

X X X

The world was dark and quiet, sky as smooth and deep as an ocean of black water speckled with the stars as fish, and there was a faint breeze that smelled like crisp winter blowing in from the east. The decrepit city was craggy ruins on the edge of the close horizon, lit up like countless eyes, and the stars shone down like a mirrored reflection of the ugly city. Maka and Soul trekked through the thin forest, following Maka's wavelength for signs of the Kishin Egg.

"It's a new moon tonight, isn't it?" Maka's voice broke the deep consuming silence. "It's so dark."

"I don't know," Soul said from his position in front of her, leading the way with his hurt pride. "Who cares?"

"I don't," Maka said sharply. She didn't know why she was feeling so bitter and defensive. This was only Soul with her, her best friend, her partnered weapon, her Soul… What was he to her anyway? He must have been more than just a weapon and a friend. Why else would she bring him with her to a battle when he couldn't transform? It wasn't like she wanted him to die…

Suddenly, he cried out in alarm.

Maka's heart leaped into her throat.

But Soul only complained, "Man, I stepped in it again! It's all squishing around in my shoes…" He lifted his foot and scrutinized the dark mud plastered all over his low Converse sneakers. He glanced at her with his crimson eyes, half-smiling in the dimness. "You've got no problem since you're wearing boots, huh, Maka?" Then, with exaggerated care, he began to pick his way through the muck and mire.

'For Soul, it's probably very hard to be with me,' Maka thought as she watched him working his way through the mud. She squelched carelessly behind him, close on his heels in his cautious slowness. 'When his meister can't use him to his full potential, he probably thinks that he's worthless. Especially with me being…' She squeezed her ugly hands together and tried to forget what she had become during the battle with Kishin Asura—a weapon.

Feeling bitter and defensive again, Maka huffed at Soul, "It's because you're not paying attention. And those shoes are worthless anyway."

"Wha—?" Soul demanded and Maka felt the hurt and shock in his voice at that word. _Worthless._ It went through him like a burning bullet. "W-what does that have to do with anything?"

"What?" Maka said with a shrug. "We're talking about your shoes, aren't we?"

'He really thinks he's worthless,' Maka thought wonderingly. 'Because he can't change into a weapon anymore. That's why he said he wants to give up. But… isn't that just running away from your problems? He would never let me do that.'

She watched his back as they walked. He looked so thin and frail that it was a wonder he was a weapon at all with those delicate fingers and soft skin yet he was her scythe, blood-colored and strong. And she was his meister, a weak-looking young girl with too much power in her mixed blood.

'I'm not as strong as Soul thinks I am,' Maka realized. 'I'm not meant to be a weapon and a meister. I just have to be one, a meister, _his_ meister. But he doesn't think of me that way. I'm always too afraid to stand up for myself and the someone who always stands up for me just has to be Soul. It had nothing to do with him being a weapon or me being a meister. I just… I want Soul by my side!'

"Hey," Soul called and his voice broke through her thoughts like a dream. "Is it really over here?"

They had come to an overgrown graveyard in the middle of the black woods, no path leading there or out, no marker proclaiming the name of the cemetery. Like the city, it was completely rundown and deserted. The headstones were covered in creeping vines and strange night-blooming flowers. The crosses were roughhewn of wood and stone and metal, tied or welded together sometimes. Some of the markers were completely broken apart and there was a small desecrated statue of a small weeping angel over the grave of a baby. It was such a sad, miserable, forgotten place.

Maka stretched out her wavelength as she came to stand beside Soul. "Yeah, I can feel it."

Then, as she looked at his moonlit face, she was reminded of how she had grabbed him back in their room. He had wanted to quit, separate, leave her, but… He had only done that because he was her partner and if he was useless, not a weapon and not even a warrior like BlackStar, he was useless to her. He only did that because it was his duty, as her partner, to let her go so she could find someone who could fulfill her needs.

"It's close," she whispered and looked down at her gloved hands, knowing the scars that lurked beneath. 'Soul is always,' she thought, 'putting up with the stupid things I do and the way I act, but… it's not because he's nice. It's because I'm his meister and he's my weapon. Am I really… just a partner to Soul?'

"Maka?" Soul's face was cast in moonlight like an old-fashioned chiaroscuro painting. He looked so handsome and sweet and a small smile touched his mouth, just for her, hiding his concern.

'If I break that relationship,' Maka wondered, 'will things get easier between us or will we just cease to be anything, not even partners?'

"Hey, Soul," she whispered and hated how choked and small her voice sounded. It sounded like she was going to cry and break down right here. "What do you want to do?"

"Maka?"

He took a step towards her but hesitated. Maka wanted to step back, to run away from whatever it was he might say, but something had her feet rooted on the spot. Maybe it was only the mud. She didn't want to hear him say he didn't want to be with her anymore. But she didn't really want to hear him say, 'I love you' either. She didn't know what she wanted… but maybe Soul did…

"It's okay," she whispered, "Just tell me!"

Suddenly, she clapped her hands to her mouth. She felt sick, nauseous, as if something had reached inside her body and was rearranging her guts. She doubled over, clutching her middle, and gasping for breath. She was going to be sick and she choked into her hand. She felt wetness on her gloves—had she really been sick? No, when she looked, there was black blood on her white gloves. She spit more blood on the ground and it seemed to spread like poisonous mold.

Weird blackness spread beneath her boots and thick and dark as blood, but it sucked her down like mud.

Soul came towards her, close enough that she could reach out and touch his face. Maka stepped back, feet sliding in the mud and blackness beneath her, but she was suddenly desperate to get away from this place, from Soul, from everything. She wanted things to be simple again, like they had been before the fight with Asura. She stumbled and felt everything around her spin—she was going to fall into this darkness and never crawl out.

"Maka!" Soul was behind her and suddenly his arms were around her. He pulled her out of that blackness, hugging her against his narrow chest, and his voice was so loud in her ear that it tore the sickness from her mind. "What happened? Are you okay?" He was so focused on Maka as she tried to claw her way back to reality, gasping and panting for breath, that he didn't see the Kishin begin to take form before them from the pool of black that Maka had been standing in. He only knew that he looked up when he heard Maka's voice and there she was, standing before him and also in his arms. He knew immediately that the other her was a fake because she had him in her hands in his scythe form and that was something he couldn't do right now.

This Kishin wasn't very smart, but it was right.

"Soul, you're so nice," the fake Maka cackled. She threw her head back and laughed, pigtails whipping around her shoulders like twin banners. "But that's _all_ you are!" She gripped him so that his blade loomed over her head and he watched as that dark blood ran down his smooth silver handle, over her fingers and dripping down on her face. "I'm not going to use you anymore, Soul. I hope you understand, but you're useless!"

Soul hugged the real Maka, his meister, tighter against his chest. "What is that thing?" he asked her because whatever it was, it knew too much and it was tearing into his heart and spirit.

"What do you mean?" Maka asked. She had recovered now, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "It's an enemy."

The fake Maka giggled and continued on as if she was a part of their conversation. "Don't tell me I'm an enemy. You'll make me mad!"

Maka reached for Soul's hand and spoke his name. They needed to fight now and she needed him.

He took her hand, holding it tightly in his own, but said, "I'm sorry. I don't think I can!"

'Still, huh?' Maka thought, but she shouted to him, "Don't let go!"

"Are you ready yet?" The fake Maka crooned as she passed Soul from hand to hand leisurely. "Oh well, ready or not, here I come!" She leaped into the air, mimicking Maka's style and using this fake weapon Soul the same way Maka always did. "How are you going to fight without a weapon?"

Maka summoned her father's weapon-blood and watched as the blade tore out of her arm without so much as ripping her uniform and blocked the blow. At her back, Soul was still holding her hand, still human and still useless. She felt his grip on her slacken and tightened her fingers around his hand. They were partners—there was no letting go!

"Hey you! Stop pretending to be me!" Maka shouted and summoned more blades out of her body, blocking every blow this fake girl could send her way with that fake Soul. "It makes me sick!"

Genuinely perplexed, the other girl asked, "What do you mean?" Then, she got off a lucky shot and a cut slithered down the side of Maka's face. The fake girl mirrored the injury, blood dripping from her chin as if they were truly the same person. "I'm not pretending. I'm you. I came out of you, right? And you can see who I am, right? _I am you, Maka!_"

"Oh God," Maka whispered and scanned the pool of blackness that had spread beneath her feet. "She's right. She's a part of my soul…"

The other girl began to laugh wildly, throwing her head back and laughing insanely.

"Maka," Soul whispered. He sounded a little broken, but Maka couldn't blame him. That girl was her. She had spoken the things aloud that Maka didn't dare say to Soul—how useless he had become to her, how disappointed she was in him, her fear, her insanity that had leaked out with the black blood. "It's okay…" he whispered even though it wasn't.

"Hey," that fake Maka called. "Let's go already!"

Soul continued. "It hurts to hold onto me, right, Maka? Then, why don't you just let go?"

Maka half-turned to face him, just barely catching his eye for a moment before turning back to face herself. She couldn't afford not to be watchful and cautious. She was both meister and weapon right now with both their lives in her hands. "Because," she said, "I can't use you like that."

The fake Maka jammed Soul's blade into the mud and it was like watching Chrona and Ragnarok all over again except it was them and the roles were flipped. The meister was abusing the weapon, shoving him down into the mire and mud. It was hard for Maka to watch. She wasn't used to seeing Soul in his weapon form. Normally she just fought with him, she never really looked at his beautiful silvery handle and decorated blade. But now, as the fake her pushed Soul into the mud, Maka saw that he really was a beautiful weapon.

"I don't need you anymore!" the shade shouted and put her foot down on the blade, pushing Soul in deeper. Then, unnerving with her pale green eyes, she looked right at Soul and hugged his bloodied handle and quoted from his nightmare. "This isn't what you want. What you really want is 'Papa,' right?" then, she continued as if to explain something deeper and darker and crueler than what he had dreamed.

Maka's hand in Soul's began to tremble and tighten to the point of pain, but Soul's red eyes were fixed on the fake.

"You just want to use someone who looks like Papa to make yourself feel better, right Maka? Someone who won't lie to you or betray you. A convenient replacement 'Papa,' but…" the fake put her eyes back on Soul and said cruelly, "But if you're not a weapon, you mean nothing to me. I don't need you anymore!"

Soul whirled to Maka, ready to beg her to tell him that this wasn't true but he could see on her face that it was. Was she using him to take her father's place, to replace him with a stronger and better Death Scythe? Maka had flat-out told him that she was going to make Soul into a stronger weapon than her father, but he had never really thought he was here to _replace_ her father in her life, as Lord Death's weapon, anything. Had he ever been anything other than that to her? He couldn't ask, but she looked completely stricken, pale as a ghost and shivering.

"I…" she began and her fingers dug into Soul's hand. "I don't think that way!" she screamed suddenly and lunged at the fake before them, howling like some kind of mad animal that had been backed into a corner and was nothing but fight and rage now.

The fake leaped backwards, taunting and teasing. "It's not going to work! You can't do it!" And sure enough, Maka couldn't land a blow and the fake escape unscathed.

Panting, Maka stopped.

"You're not even on the same wavelength anymore!" the fake hissed and lunged forward to cleave them both in half.

Soul tried to pull his hand away. "Maka, let go!"

"No!" she screamed and tightened her grip on him.

"W-what are you saying?" Soul asked desperately as she dragged him along by the hand as she attacked again. "Look at what's going on! If you don't let me go, you're going to get hurt!"

"I'm doing this _because_ of what's going on!" Maka shouted and blocked the downward sweep of her clone's blade.

"But if you let go, you can fight easier!" he protested and put his back against hers, pressing close.

"No!" Maka said and her face was unspeakably sad.

The fake slashed down at them from above and Maka looked about to break beneath the blow.

"But why?" Soul shouted. "Let me go! Stop it!" He tried to pull away again. "Don't think about me, Maka. Think only about yourself!" His voice rose and octave. "Whether you're sympathizing with me or trying to make me feel better with your half-hearted kindness, I don't need any of it!"

Maka blocked another blow and the blade in her arm cracked. She panted hard. She wanted to speak to him, but she couldn't. 'That's not it at all, Soul,' she thought instead and smiled softly at her memories even as she fought for their lives.

The piano…

It all came back to that piano…

Everything between them was because of that piano…

The conversation that had made them had been so innocent, all back-dropped by Soul's insane music as they talked in quite voices together in that echoing acoustic room that was so like the one inside his heart and soul. Maka didn't know then that she was probing inside his raw half-healed wounds. She was all childhood innocence and cheer and love for everything. Soul was still dark and insane then, trying to drive everyone away while somehow begging them to stay.

"_Hey, play for fun! It sounds so boring now!"_

"_Nobody's listening to me anyway. Besides, I don't have fun when I play the piano."_

"_Really, then why do you play?"_

"_If I play piano, then I'll be more like my brother."_

"_You have a brother. You know, instead of just being like your brother, why don't you try to be better than your brother? You know, I want to find a weapon better than my father and become stronger than my mother."_

_They had been quiet for a long moment then, both listening to him play and thinking their own private thoughts. _

_Then, Maka had whispered, "I like it when you play the piano, Soul."_

Everything had been decided on that day at the piano in the darkness.

In the present, Maka finally caught her breath. "Don't say that I don't need him!" she shouted at her fake. "He taught me everything I needed to know about him back then. I decided on Soul at that piano!" But it didn't matter how strong Maka felt just then because she couldn't beat herself while she was holding onto Soul. She took a great blow to the stomach, crashed hard into Soul and sent them both sprawling across the hard muddy ground. Moaning in agony, Maka hugged her stomach, but she still held his hand tightly, refusing to let him go no matter what.

Towering above them, the scythe looming above her head, the other girl looked down on them almost sadly. "Look at me Soul. Don't run away. Just think it over, just like she said," she whispered. "Look right at me, Soul, and tell me how you really feel. How do you feel about me? Tell me the truth."

Maka stared helplessly up at the fragment of her doubting broken heart, brought to animation. This was her own personal demon laying everything she wanted to hide bear before everyone. Had she just been using Soul to replace her father? No, Soul was everything to her—her best friend, her weapon partner, her guardian and protector, her pianist, her everything. She closed her eyes and gasped for breath. She didn't want to know what Soul was going to say.

"I-I don't know!" Soul shouted and his fingers tightened around her hand. His heart began to pound as he looked at Maka's fallen body. It felt like she was the only one getting stronger. She was becoming something so awesome, half-weapon, half-meister, and he was still just her weak scythe. He wanted so badly to be strong enough to protect her so that she wouldn't be the one protecting him anymore. He wanted to be strong! Strong enough to be _more_ than a replacement.

Above poor fallen Maka, the fake was raising the blade of the scythe over her body, preparing to strike. Soul didn't know how he did it because he never knew exactly how he changed his body into a weapon, but he knew that all of the sudden he could do it again. He stabbed his arm through her, tearing her shade of a body apart.

For a moment, she looked shocked, but then her twisted face softened and she whispered, "It took you long enough…" Then, her body melted away, revealing the flickering part of a soul inside.

Soul felt powerful and good and strong again. He was a weapon again. He wasn't useless anymore. Maka could use him now!

Maka slipped her fingers through the crook of his elbow and pulled herself to her feet.

"Sorry it took me so long," he murmured as the image of her fake began to dissolve into darkness and reshape itself.

"Don't worry about it. So, what do you want to do, Soul?"

He glanced at her, confused. Did she still want to get rid of him?

But Maka only smiled. "Who will be the weapon?" she asked.

"Hmm," he said and slid his hand into hers. "I like being the weapon."

"Okay!" she said cheerfully and felt his body shift against her palm and he became the comforting weight of her scythe again. "That's the way I like it too!"

Before them, the bubbling black Kishin Egg was reshaping form, but Maka's heart skipped several beats when she saw what it was becoming. It just couldn't possibly be! What the hell were they facing in this rundown graveyard?

"Well, what are you doing now?" the new shade asked her.

X X X

Questions, comments, concerns?

By the way, thanks you SakuraKamichama and BloodInTheNile for reviewing. I'm sorry I yelled at you!

_**Review!**_


	4. Was I Playing Like That Again?

Last chapter! Haha!

I updated and edited this ENTIRE story because it was still a little rough in places.

Because a lot of people keep asking me—yes, I did take a lot of creative liberty with the dialogue because, let's face it, some parts of it just didn't make any sense. I smoothed everything out to the best of my ability!

X X X

"Well, what are you doing now?" this new shade asked her and his pale face streamed with moonlight. It was Soul, as almost a child back when they had first met at that piano and become partners. He was even wearing the same handsome suit with his silver hair cut in the same neat style he used to wear back then. "You're just using him, aren't you?" the fake Soul demanded.

"Yes I am," Maka fired back. "Do you have a problem with that?" She adjusted her grip on his sleek silvery handle. Was he lighter than he used to be? Stronger and warmer in her hands? "I'm his meister and he's my weapon. I use him because he wants to be used! The word 'use' sounds mean, but it's a word you have to employ." She lifted him over her head, ready to strike down this twisted shade of him as he had destroyed the shade of her. "If Soul is my weapon, I can do anything! And that's because it all comes back to us being together and using each other!"

The Soul before her didn't even try to fight or move. She cleaved him in half at the waist and watched as his body dissolved like spools of paper and silk. In the center of that twisted darkness, two small shards of souls waited—part of Maka's and part of Soul's. It was the doubt and the fear in them, something that had sprouted since the fight with Asura. Both orbs shot towards them, burying like hot coals through the center of Maka's chest and flattening against Soul's scythe blade.

Then, abruptly, Maka was swept away into darkness.

…

She was alone in Soul's mind and there was no piano in its usual place in the beautiful black and scarlet room. Also, the door that was always closed and locked securely was open. She could hear music drifting in from somewhere and smell something sweet. Barefoot, unsure of where half her clothing had gone, but not really caring, Maka stepped through the open threshold and followed the stairs upwards into a whole other world.

She came to a room much the same as the first except the ceiling was draped in billowing cloth like clouds and small plants grew up between the tiles of the floor. The room felt endless, like being outside, and there was a warm breeze blowing from somewhere. In the middle of the strange new room, Soul was sitting at his piano in only his dark slacks and white shirt with his tie loosened as it had never been before. His crimson eyes were smoothly closed, his mouth curved in a faint smile, and his fingers danced across the keys as he played the most graceful and gentle melody Maka had ever heard. The sheets of music billowed around him like paper butterflies.

Maka had never seen something so beautiful in her life.

Suddenly, Soul's wonderful blood-colored eyes opened. They looked less bloody and more like rubies or strawberries now, no longer those wounded bloody eyes Maka had become so used to looking into. They were lit from within with a new confidence and happiness. He lifted his pale handsome face as the beautiful song came to a climax, fingers dancing to a faster beat, and he _smiled_.

He really _smiled_.

…

Maka's eyes slid open and she first saw the dark night sky and then Soul's face. She was stretched out on the ground, her head resting comfortably in his lap while he reclined against a tree, waiting patiently for her to come around. His soft hand was resting on her forehead, stroking back her hair, and she wondered how long he had been doing that for her… just absently fearlessly touching her face and her hair. He wasn't afraid, as Maka was, so show that he cared.

"Hey," he murmured. "You're awake…"

"You were playing the piano," Maka said sleepily and then her mind cleared. She reached up to stroke his face, smoothing some unkempt silver hair behind his ear, but he caught her hand at the first mention of the piano and lowered it.

"How uncool," was all Soul said. "Was I playing like that again?"

She knew what he meant. Insanely, twisted, badly. She shook her head and made herself comfortable in his lap.

"I've always hated the piano," he confessed. "I only played it because everyone else in my family played an instrument. Everyone had such high expectations for my brother that they never even looked at me. I truly thought that no matter what I did, I would never be as good as him because when he played, he smiled. I never smiled. Playing piano just wasn't fun for me and whenever I play, it just makes me feel worse—inadequate, worthless, useless." He stroked her hair as he spoke, twisting the strands around his beautiful fingers. "Even though I became a weapon as an excuse to run away from my family and the piano, it just seems…" he laughed lightly, sadly, "…meant to be. By that piano, you chose me to be your weapon."

Maka laid her hand over his softly.

"It's such a little thing, but it made me… really happy. You were the first one to actually listen to me when I played." His face grew sad and dark. "But, that stopped mattering right around the fight with Asura. You all didn't need me to play anymore, not even so we could resonate together. We have you now, Maka, half-weapon, half-meister, and I realized that I'm not much of anything. I realized that I have no power to protect anybody and even if I did, I have no one to protect. You certainly don't need me…"

'Soul really…' she realized as she stretched her hand up towards his face again. 'He really thinks of himself as worthless, useless, and unwanted.'

"I'm pitiful," he whispered.

"No, you're not," Maka said firmly. She cupped his face in her hand, feeling the heat of him soaking into her cold fingers. "You're really… really…" His face was so broken and hopeless that she knew nothing she could say would change his mind. She wouldn't be able to convince him that he wasn't a replacement or just a weapon or useless. So, stiff and sore, Maka sat up and put her arms around her weapon partner. "You don't understand, do you, Soul?" she whispered into the side of his neck. "Please, stay with me! Even if it's not forever, stay with me! R-right now, just this is enough!" And she sobbed into his shoulder, clutching him tightly.

For a long moment, Soul was quiet, just letting her hold onto him and cry while he thought about everything that had happened. Finally, he wrapped his arms around her and stroked her ash-blonde hair. "Maka," he began. "I'm sorry for saying such mean things… about myself… and about you…"

"It's okay," she sniffled. "I'm strong enough."

"Aren't you just pretending to be strong?" he whispered into her hair.

"No," she said firmly. "I'm not. For you, I am strong. I can always be strong for you, Soul. And, together, we're even stronger."

Above them, the bright moon suddenly peeked out, laughing and painting the world pure silver. The leaves in the trees rustled in a sudden warm breeze and a few birds chattered uncertainly in the sudden brightness. In the graveyard, crickets began to sing and all the night-blooming flowers burst into bloom. All traces of their personal demons were gone.

…

It was almost dawn and it was silly to go back to their room only to get up and catch the train home in an hour so Maka and Soul went straight to the tiny station and sat on the lonely bench in the dark alongside the tracks. The moon shown down on them like a bright beacon, casting long shadows that made Maka think of how they had fought themselves, fought each other. It brought new meaning to the phrase personal demons.

"It feels like we're the only people in the world," Maka whispered and gazed at the ruins of the city and the small strip of bright dawn on the horizon. Yet, even saying that, she didn't feel alone, she realized with a smile. Soul was with her. She was never alone.

Beside her on the bench, Soul began to slump to one side and she saw that his eyes were closed and he looked exhausted. "Are you tired already?" she asked him even though she knew the answer.

"Yeah," he murmured.

So Maka was quiet, sitting alone with her thoughts. It was great to just know Soul was beside her and would be for a long time to come. Why did that make her so happy? What was Soul to her? He had never been a replacement. He was more than a weapon, more than a partner, even more than a friend. Soul was… Soul. She gazed at him as he tried to sleep, cheek just brushing her shoulder so she knew that he was still awake, though barely. What _was_ Soul to her?

It was time to show him just how important and precious he was to her. She could snuggle up beside him, touch him, hug him… She wasn't afraid that it would change them, now. They were strong enough to face anything together.

Maka leaned over and gently kissed his lips.

The sparks raced through her body like the fire her mother had described about love, the same description Maka had given Soul what felt like an eternity ago. Love felt like fire and heat, warm comfort, that perfect protected feeling, knowing you're both there for each other. Love is everything in the world and it's different for everyone, but love should never hurt you intentionally or break you apart. Love is the glue that holds people together, some closer than others.

Soul was love, Maka realized. He was her love.

Beside her, he blinked blearily, like Sleeping Beauty waking from her slumber, and glanced up at her with his big honest blood-colored eyes. But Maka stared straight ahead as if searching for the train, only the faint flush in her cheeks giving away that her kiss hadn't been just a dream in his fevered mind. Softly, Soul smiled and the sun eased its way over the edge of the horizon. _"Love is like the sun, Soul," _he remembered Maka saying when he asked. _"It's warm and heats you up from the inside out and you can't live without it."_

Maka was the sun, Soul thought. She was his sun.

X X X

Based on the doujinshi Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver.

Be warned, the doujinshi is on a HENTAI site even though there's no sex in that one. It's in two parts on this website: http:/ www. fakku. net/manga. php?series=Soul+Eater so you can either go there and look for Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver 01 and then 02 or…

Part One: http:/ www. fakku. net/viewmanga. php?id=4588

Part Two: http:/ www. fakku. net/viewmanga. php?id=4595

ENJOY!

Drop me a review and let me know what you think! Are the characters way out of character (not my fault, that's how they were in the doujinshi)? Does everybody hate the clones? Think I torture Soul and Maka way too much? Are permanently disgusted and can no longer even watch Soul Eater thanks to me? Loved it? Hated it? Are scared for life because the doujinshi was way better? Are traumatized by the thought of Soul being a useless weapon? (Remember, flames will be used to roast marshmallows and weenies! And I'll most likely flame you back for being silly.) Think I need to do more editing before I post chapters? Post to slow? Chapters are too short? Too long? Yada, yada, yada…

Also, please, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! The Breaking of Poisonwood by **Paradise Avenger**. (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected _this_. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The _Poisonwood_—)

Questions, comments, concerns?


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